


Questions

by tortoisegirl



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, Post-Karnak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-17
Updated: 2011-09-17
Packaged: 2017-10-23 20:18:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/254518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoisegirl/pseuds/tortoisegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Karnak pre-OT3 happenings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Questions

Laurie sat crosswise on the narrow bed, back to the wall, head resting next to the battered frame of the room’s single window. The space heater chugging away on the floor kept her feet warm while she breathed the cold air leaking in around the window's edges, and thought. Thought about money. Jobs. Their safety. Things neither she nor Dan have had to deal with on his level before. So many questions she didn’t know the answer to.

Sprawled across her lap, Dan had fallen into a mercifully deep sleep after a long workday and his own bout of worries. Laurie rubbed soothing, repetitive circles into his back as he slept and she thought.

A sound from the doorway pulled her from her thoughts.

Rorschach was frozen halfway across the threshold. They stared at each other for a silent, tense moment.

“Apologies. Didn’t realize you were in.” His glance raked over the two of them, taking in the sight. “Came to get a blanket.”

Laurie shrugged and went back to rubbing circles into Dan’s back. Rorschach crossed to the tiny, doorless closet set into the wall.

She watched him go on his toes to root around for the spare blanket on the top shelf; an extra layer for the unheated front room where he slept. Well, where they assumed he slept. She’d only caught him there once, stretched on the couch with a thin blanket pulled up to his chin. After that he was always gone by the time they were up, no matter how early, crumbled blanket the only sign he slept there at all.

Rorschach found his prize and turned to leave. A draft of air swept over the back of Laurie’s neck and she shivered.

“Hey, wait.” It surprised her to say to say it—not sure she meant to. Even more so when he complied. On her lap Dan shifted in his sleep. “He gets worried about you,” she said to Rorschach, “sleeping on the couch when it gets this cold. The space heater’s not much but it keeps us from freezing, so, uh…”

Rorschach’s flat stare never left her as she talked. She wasn’t even sure he blinked. Faltering, she looked down at Dan and took a moment to run her fingers through his hair before looking back up. “Why don’t you get out the army cot and bunk in here tonight?”

Rorschach managed to look suspicious without twitching a single facial muscle.

She sighed. “Rorschach, come on. Please?”

He did look away from her this time: looked at the bare floor and the bare walls, and at Dan. He wasn't quite looking at her when he nodded.

Laurie closed her eyes and listened to his footsteps as he got his things together, fingers tangled in Dan's hair.  



End file.
